Fire in Space better left cold?

[thomas7g]

LOL! I bet THAT topic draws folks in here!!!!

no this is not a anti BG thread. Infact its in praise of it. One of the episodes I really like is FIRE IN SPACE. Now the whole concepts has some big holes. Fire is not hard to put out in space. We all know that. The writers were idiots for not knowing that.

But one of the things that is so typical is that while the science was flimsy, you loved the characters. That was in part due to the actors being good people and charismatic, but it was also the writing and directing. And while they weren't science whizes they knew how to make characters that jumped off our screens and into our hearts.

But BOY would I love to go back and correct a few things.

First of all, putting out a fire in space is not hard. CLose a few hatches and open an airlock.

What they could have done to make this more believable was say that somehow the cylons started some sort of plasma fire. That they were able to create a fire that existed in the walls of the galactica. The "fire" was reacting with the materials the walls were made of. This makes more sense cause there are certain kinds of fire that can burn underwater. I remember playing with magnesium. Once you light it on fire, it will burn even if you put it underwater. It burns so hot it can supply itself with oxygen from the water itself. So I imagine in scifi its possible to start a fire in a material that provides its own catalysts.

And another small thing, blowing a hole on the hull shouldn't have thrown the ship off her gyros. They treated the ship as delicately balanced. An obvious plot trick for suspense. But the thing is a massive mile long hunk of metal! It takes cylon raiders packed with explosives ramming it. Every battle the ship is hit with explosive forces.

What I think would have eorked better is to instead of dealt with a fire, to deal with the opposite, cold. You just had a cataclysmic attack. But instead of dealing with a fire, say you knock the fire out early. But then you have a damaged ship drifting dead in space. A sitting duck for the cylons. And even worse, its slowly freezing. The cold of space is turning the ship into an icebox. Boomer and company are racing the cold trying to retreat into the warmer ship interior. Rescuers can't reach them cause of battle damage. And they have to bring a dead ship back to life before the cylons come again.

You could have some great poignant scenes of the fleet looking back at the galactica, their only protector drifting and turning silently in space. And they have to abandon her just incase she can't be salvaged. Fleeing from the cylons in a desperate escape. The fleet leaving the old girl behind would have brought tears to our eyes. And the brave souls who would stay with her to effect repairs against all hope would have been a sight to see.

Tigh leading the surviving ships. Apollo refusing to neve again leave a family member behind, not after Zac. Especially not Boxy.

Woulda been grand!

[martok2112]

Great ideas, Tom.

[repcisg]

Perfect!

[Harvester]

Sounds an awful lot like 'Out of Gas' from Firefly.......I just happened to finish watching it all on DVD. It's mentioned that those onboard would likely freeze to death before suffocating.

I agree that leaving the ship that delivered your people from armageddon could make for some great onscreen moments.

All in all, at least you could see them spending an hour of TV time correcting that problem, rather than the fire.

Of course, you could do 'Fire in Space' using a '24' approach. Show the attack and the damage control in real time. Just a silly thought.

[Senmut]

Icebox In Space.

Hhmm....doesn't have the same ring.

[LadyImmortal]

I like the idea of a floundering Galactica. That would have made for some awesome drama!

FiS is one of my favorite episodes too . Despite the science plot holes you could drive the Galactica through .

[martok2112]

As long as they don't have Muffit tracking down survivors by mushies....that was probably the worst aspect of that episode.

[LadyImmortal]

Ok, now I'm remember the parts of that show that I didn't like - Muffit hunting down mushies... ::shudder::

[Senmut]

Or, that the explosion/s took out the controls for the landing bay force field/airlocks, and they can't get to the manual controls easily because of the fire?

[ernie90125]

With the bridge crippled and the Cylons’ kamikaze attack a success...what did they do next?

Went back to the base star and never tried it again ?!?!

Eh ?

[Charybdis]

Yeah, you'd think that with all those Cylon robots around, they could have spared a few by ramming the Galactica with some Raiders and crippling her for good.

[Eric Paddon]

The original script called for a new Cylon attack during the climax while Apollo and Starbuck are setting the charges. The network censors killed it.

I have learned more and more how much network censorship interfered with good storytelling. While I actually found the change from lizards to robots better in that it paved the way for the great backstory element of WOTG, we needed to see more casualties on the Colonial side to keep the threat credible.

[Senmut]

One could always posit that the Cylons did not follow up their attack, because the Pegasus distracted them, in some fashion. Rather than do his duty, Baltar would have run and hid, giving Adama time to slip away.